


over the years

by taniavee28



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Dan Howell/Phil Lester, 2017 Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Canon Era, Cute Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Dan Howell Loves Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester Comfort, Dan Howell/Phil Lester Drabble, Dan Howell/Phil Lester One Shot, Dan Howell/Phil Lester in Love, Domestic Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Happy, Inspired by Twitter, M/M, Phil Lester Loves Dan Howell, Pre-Canon, YouTuber Dan Howell, YouTuber Phil Lester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 20:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taniavee28/pseuds/taniavee28
Summary: dan howell and phil lesterestablished; 2009 - present(a mini 2-part twoshot about the manchester theory on twitter.)





	over the years

**Author's Note:**

> in no way do i claim this is real or cast aspersions on dan and phil ★
> 
> so my Twitter has been graced (or cursed, depends on how you take it) by tweets about my boys going to manchester and having some time to themselves. there's a cool theory i'd like to tie in, in which then this might become an all-out drabble series based on my takes of what happened in each point of time, but we'll see soon.
> 
> hope you enjoy this! ♡

_2009, Manchester_

_being awake at three a.m. is not something phil is unaccustomed to. he is, after all, a night owl, and when the nights come he's_ _**alive** _ _again - his head filling with the most vibrant and beautiful of ideas that hit him at odd hours of the night while he sometimes walks in a tippytoed, hushed silence with a finger pressed firmly against his soft lips to shush any noise he makes across the room to the window and stands still, looking at the blanket of bright, twinkling, sparklingsilver stars that littered the inky, dark night sky._

_but what that is still quite a new concept is how the galaxies of the stars he'd loved seeing with the windows wide open and a cool breeze caressing his bony cheek with tender fingers reminds him of little freckles that dust the grainy skin of a grainy honeybrown coloured boy he'd grown to have a strange sort of fondness for. phil's mindspace; the playground of his ideas; phil isn't entirely used to having him around, but he'd picked up on how his heart would make little flutters and his stomach would clench a little as he did, as images of the little young boy with his feathersoft smile and his doebrown eyes rippled in, and he finds himself yearning to see those endearing features again as they blur out from the cling of senility that lingered around in memories._

_**dan** _ _, he thinks,_ _**dan, dan, dan.** _

_**what are you doing to me?** _

_***swoosh!*** _ _he hears, and he can swear his heart did a goddamned little swoosh of its own, and a giddy, euphoric grin that stretches from ear is threatening to bloom across his face as he quickens his pace and almost, almost runs to the brown messy desk his computer is on, and gives a little squeal of delight when his eyes landed on the notification popping up on his desktop. he squints his eyes a little to properly read it, adjusting his glasses as he did as he read_

_@danisnotonfire: phil_

_phil lester can fucking swear he felt his breath hitch just a little and his heart race just a bit more as he read the message, because when dan types his name like that, it usually means that there is something serious, something important that he had to say, and the implications of what he could drives him phil crazy for a minute._

_@danisnotonfire: can i call you?_

_phil feles the knot ebb away as a soft sort of confusion settles at his stomach, the kind where he could let his guard down and just ponder innocently at the implications this might have, and his fingers work furiously, fluidly, like water gushing down a waterfall._

_@amazingphil666: yes_

_connecting becomes ringing and phil taps his feet absentmindedly to the familiar tune of the Skype call notification as his heart begins hammering in his chest in little flutters, and the tap-tap-tapping becomes more of a tap-shake-shaking as the line gets through and the audio is a little grainy and the sound of dan howell’s sugarsweet voice drones in from the speakers of his white headphones, grainy and soft yet smooth and deep like a hot cup of well-brewed dark coffee. dan had always hated his voice, called it too much like winnie the pooh’s, but phil had always been there to change his mind._

_every time._

_“hey phil…” he says, his voice curling upwards as dan addressess him, making his insides turn a bit too warm for his liking. “hey dan,” he says in return, noting how chirpy he sounded like but deciding not to dwell on it too much._

_“so...i really had to tell you something.”_

_and in that syrupy, sugarsweet voice of his, dan pours out his entire cocktail of emotions to the boy with bluegreenyellow eyes at the other end of the line who's eyes sparkled like little pools he could go swimming in._

_“i love you.” dan says with a sort of certainty, like he's so fucking sure of what he's saying when he really might not be, because love is something that has a lot of connotation marks to it - those were dan's own words. those were the words that phil found himself believing too, because its true, love is a heavy, heavy word with a lot of meaning.  phil's just there, breathless, heart pounding as in a dizzying, suffocating rush, emotions start welling up inside him and he's almost, almost questioning dan's motives because_ _**is dan really, really sure of what he's getting into?** _

_"i'm not," comes the_ _honeylike_ _voice from the other end of the line, soft, almost a little sad at the edges. "i'm not, phil, and it's scaring me. fuck, everything about this is scaring me. but then again...this whole entire thing is making me the happiest i have ever been. i've been so, so...alive. content. i have actually been a little happy with myself, reminding myself of nice shit you'd say when i'm a mean jerk to myself." he gasps, as if catching his breath and trying hard to not cry, and phil's too stunned to react and say anything. fuck, he really went ahead and said it out loud now, didn't he?_

_dan goes on anyway, after a deep breath and a pause. "and honestly,_ _**what do i have to lose** _ _? this whole thing is making me insanely_ _**happy** _ _when everything else clearly isn't. phil, i don't wanna lose this. i don't want to give up the one thing that reminds me to smile everyday."_

_phil hears a choked sob at the other end of the line, and the gates open as words rush out to comfort him, to shush him and tell him that he's not entirely sure of this himself, he's scared too, but he'll bloody well_ _**try** _ _because it all seems so worth it. so not out-of-reach. so incredibly_ _**risky** _ _\- dan's barely eighteen and phil is twenty-two  and all of it sounds so_ _**surreal** _ _\- yet so fucking exciting at the same time._

_so when he stirs four and a half hours later, with the orangegold rays of the morning sun beginning to creep up on them after a three hours of phil laying his head on his limbs outstretched across his table while his neck ached and went stiff, white earphones still on and phil's senses fine-tuned to the sound of dan's own sweet, soft sounds of sleep, phil thinks that maybe, just maybe, this might just work out for the both of them._

_he feels little warm buzzes in his chest as phil's mind conjures up memories of a little pleasant dream of two bright eyed boys holding hands and laughing and being so deliriously happy. they speak in a world void of static sounds and grainy screens and the blank, awful ache that came when calls came to an end, and phil is more convinced than ever to take the leap and give this a try, because_ _**who** _ _**knows** _ _, this just, just might work._

_besides, dan sounds really fucking adorable when he's asleep._

**Author's Note:**

> niamh and yana, i owe it to you angels for always sticking by me, and so, this is for you. ♡♡


End file.
